


Bring me back to your forest home (and marry me under its trees)

by Plexus (toitsu)



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Arranged Marriage, M/M, You're Welcome, at all, don't expect fluff and happiness, will probably be confusing as hell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-27
Updated: 2013-11-27
Packaged: 2018-01-02 18:37:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1060172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toitsu/pseuds/Plexus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is still some time before the dawn. Before the crisp clear morning and bitter regrets and nasty words, maybe. <br/>Before the wedding bells.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bring me back to your forest home (and marry me under its trees)

**Author's Note:**

> I have been working on this for longer than a year. I wanted it to be longer and better. Alas it wasn't meant to be.
> 
> title is slightly tweaked lyrics of 'Hard to tell' by Young galaxy. i blame this entire piece on that song.

i.  [biting down]

The slightest scowl, tired disapproval: _Must you?_ Thorin doesn't bother with an answer; with vacant eyes he watches tendrils of smoke drift above them. The other man shifts, turns away – cascades of pale gold (more silver, really) tumble down his shoulder, pool on the rumpled sheets.

Silence grows, and neither bothers to weed it out; _don't go,_ one of them thinks, or perhaps they both do.

\- - -

There should be a party: somebody, some friend of Thranduil surely, _surely_ planned something. He is not supposed to be here, in Thorin's house, in Thorin's _bed,_ not any more. Perhaps if he closes his eyes it will all disappear: the man, the reasons, the faint smell of cologne and sweat and lust. Smoke sits heavily in his lungs. Thranduil still keeps his back turned, and how can he be here, so cool and untouchable, what is he doing in Thorin's bed?

'You brought me here'

'What?'

Thranduil turns his face, only his eyes visible behind his hair and his shoulder.

'You asked what am I doing in your bed; if you don't want me here, you only need to say so'

He really, really should say so; say _get out, get lost, I don't want to see you ever again - get out of my life, you ruined everything._

Yell, perhaps. Throw a few punches while he is at it.

Instead, he twines pale hair around his fingers.

Instead, he leans over the other man.

There is still some time before the dawn. Before the crisp clear morning and bitter regrets and nasty words, maybe.

Before the wedding bells.

They move awkwardly, as if they haven't done this hundred times before, limbs getting tangled, teeth bruising skin (he shouldn't leave marks, Thranduil is getting _married,_ what will his wife _think –_ her groom already claimed; but Thranduil is not complaining, so Thorin doesn't stop)

(perhaps she will think nothing at all).

No hasty declarations of love, just _scratch scratch bite._ Thranduil's legs around Thorin's hips; a silent permission, _do as you please._

(Take, take everything; claim all. She will never know the arch of her husband's back when he comes undone; the sensitive places between his ribs; where to put her teeth to make him smile.

Take it, take it all. Leave only the bones. She will never know)

(Oh, but she could _learn_ )

Later, in the morning cold and grey, Thranduil will dress in silence and Thorin will feign sleep.

 

ii. [company calls-epilogue]

He is even more breathtaking than his bride, in a simple black suit next to her elaborate dress, her complicated, delicate hair-do. His hair is undone. 

Thorin watches. Listens as they exchange wovs. The rings; elegant things he crafted himself, a gift and a knife in the side, both. He doesn't, however, watch as they kiss.

\---

His hair is undone (and it shouldn't be, not for her, not for _their_ wedding – the silver cascade of it Thorin can still picture on his pillows, remembers when it was tangled with the sticks and leaves and dirt; why did he undo his hair for her, why would he?)(Why wouldn't he?)

(But it's not as if he has any right to it, anymore, to run fingers through it, and it's just a hair, just a stupid hair.)

(He loves that hair.)

He both watches and doesn't watch, strangely detached and aching all at once – the guests start crowding the newlyweds, congratulating, making toasts, clasping hands, hugging. Thranduil's face is impassive;  the bride elated, she laughs. The sound of it pierces to the very bottom of his weary heart.

 

iii. [virgin]

The gentle summers of his youth. A cold estate at the foot of a mountain, mostly empty; his brother and sister and himself and a handful of servants. His tutor, Balin, and his younger brother Dwalin, Thorin's closest friend. His father and grandfather, spending time with him, sometimes. Their work never done. Children from a nearby village he sometimes played with.

He had been happy, there, even after they lost everything.

And then he went into the woods.

\----

He had always been a child of the mountain, all of them were. The early years of his life, when it was still theirs – to mine, to explore, to worship and love, boom of laughter and voices, so many of them. They got lost in the tunnels, many times, Dwalin and him, _I told you not to play there, not to go there, don't you ever listen_ a constant background noise.

It was a grand adventure, then, a home, a _real_ home, not the walls and portraits of long dead ancestors and the comfortable beds – not really. It has always been the mountain.

Even after. Well. Even after Smaug and his pleasant voice and casual betrayal.

He cried, then, he did, when he was told the mountain wasn't theirs any more, they cried too, his father and grandfather, all silent tears and gritted teeth.

It emptied. The halls of their home, the tunnels. The people, all the treasures – lost. The few of them, though, they stayed. Stayed, because it was a knife twisting in the guts, staying, but the thought of leaving an even worse pain.

But sometimes there were good days, the wind carried the echoes and – it hurt a little less. A little less.  There were good days.

And then he went into the woods.

 

iv. [asymmetries of loss]

Thranduil makes his way to him, long into the night. Thorin may or may not be drunk. He offers his half-empty glass; for a moment, their fingers touch. Thranduil carefully brings the glass to his lips – on the exact place Thorin has had his. This is, in a way, their last kiss.

\---

The lights flicker out, the hall empties; the merry dancers, the musicians, they disappear in the night, taking sound and all things that shone with them. The bride is sitting at the table, left alone and no longer smiling; there are shadows around her eyes, something tired in the tilt of her mouth, but her back is still straight, she holds her head high. Amidst the mess and the emptiness, she waits for her groom to return.

 

v. [sacrilege]

_A gift,_ his father praised him, _with metal and gems – one day you will be great._ And he was gifted; still is, just less inspired. Dead things came alive under his fingers, whispered to him, _I am a necklace, I am a sword._

To this day, he still considers a hastily made crown of twigs and berries (a joke, really; a secret and a childish promise that had no place in this world; made sense nowhere but between them) his greatest work of art.

\----

And how it tangled in that pale hair, the berries leaking juice, when they rolled in the grass, young and naked and perhaps slightly drunk; this crown for the forest king. It suited Thranduil, in ways Thorin couldn't explain -in the shadows of the trees it made him seem feral – a wild creature, unbound by the rules of society, absolved of humanity; the tranquil air of the forest given form Thorin could touch.

They were young, then, him and this impossible boy made of long legs and thick dark eyebrows, enemies at first – the ruler of the forest and the intruder, son of the mountain and stone. 

 

vii.  [architect of love]

She could've been his bride, Thranduil has told him as much ( _this one or another – it could have been you walking up to the altar. So don't blame me for being my father's only son_ ); his bride, this lovely daughter of the Drake family; her blood noble, her hand expensive. It could've been him standing beside her, if not for an old feud between their houses; old wound, old story. As old, or perhaps even older, as the feud between Thranduil's family and his – had any of them been born a woman, it would still never end with wedding bed for them.

A thief and a traitor, how fitting that they be united, at last, even if it's through descendants.

(Ah, what does it matter, anymore. Thorin is tired, and their days are all past.)

\---

He takes comfort in his nephews, these days – their father dead, his sister withdrawn – they latch onto him, small and lonely and confused and he gives them all the love he can spare.

He names them his heirs, because much like his sister, their family at large, he only knows to give heart once; no companion will share his bed for the rest of his life.

He learns, later, of a son.

 

vi. [evening on the ground]

On bad days, days of beginning, Thorin thought him a malevolent, if lovely, forest spirit; a dryad or some such nonsense. Later, in days of ending, he wished that that was what he was – a creature of stories and myth, a fey being, untouched and unconcerned and forever his, under the green leaves; beer for him and wine for the fey boy, and the eternity for them both.

 

**Author's Note:**

> all the 'titles' in the brackets are titles of various songs that helped this shit along.


End file.
